NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1914. 



THE IBOSPEAKING PEOPLE OF 

 SOUTHERN NIGERIA. 



Anthropological Report on Iho-Speaking Peoples 

 of Nigeria. By N. W. Thomas. Part iv,, 

 Law and Custom of the Ibo of the Asaba 

 District, S. Nigeria. Pp. vi + 208. Price 45. 

 net. Part v., Addenda to Ibo-English DiC" 

 tionary. Pp. x+184. Price 45. net. Part vi., 

 Proverbs, Stories, Tones in Ibo. Pp. viji + 114. 

 Price 45. net. (London : Harrison and Sons, 

 1914.) 



LATE in the eighteenth centur}' the European 

 nations then most engaged in the slave 

 trade — Britain, Holland, France, and Portugal — 

 became aware that there was a vigorous, muscular 

 race of negroes called the Ibo — a name rendered 

 in English down to the middle of the nineteenth 

 century Eeboe. They fed the slave markets of 

 Benin, and thence made their way to Brazil and 

 the slave markets of Bonny and Calabar. When 

 Richard Lander and his brother John completed 

 the solution of the Niger mystery and descended 

 the Niger from the Busa rapids to the head of 

 its delta, they were captured by a raiding party 

 of Ibos in canoes, and taken to the headquarters 

 of an Ibo king. Here they were ransomed by the 

 Ijo people of Brass (one of the Niger mouths) and 

 thence actually conveyed to the sea-coast, whence 

 they managed to make their way home. 



The sufferings of the Lander brothers directed 

 special attention to the Ibo people, especially as 

 Richard Lander's successful demonstration of the 

 Niger outlets immediately led to the dispatch of 

 trading and exploring expeditions to the River 

 Niger, more or less under British Government 

 supervision. For some fifty years afterwards the 

 Ibos alternately encouraged and repelled the 

 attempts of the British to open up the Lower 

 Niger to commerce. They were really not brought 

 under anything like control until the Royal Niger 

 Company established its headquarters at Asaba 

 in the midst of their countr}-, thirty years ago, 

 and it is in the Asaba district to the west of the 

 Lower Niger that Mr. Northcote Thomas has 

 made his chief studies of the Ibo people, especially 

 those set forth in the three volumes under review. 



The region of the Lower Niger below the con- 

 fluence of the Niger and the Benue, and thence 

 to Lagos on one hand, and Old Calabar on 

 the other, is inhabited by principal stocks (i) the 

 Igara-Yoruba-Jekri ; (2) the Sobo-Bini (related to 

 No. i); (3) the Ibo-Efik ; (4) the Ijo; and (5) the 

 Akwa.. There are also, perhaps, in the region 

 between the Cross River and Opobo, and again 

 between the main stream of the Niger or Nun 

 NO. 2346, VOL. 94] 



and the Forcados River, traces of other negro 

 stocks (such as the Aro) as yet isolated in 

 affinities. The affinities of the Ibo with the Efik 

 people of Old Calabar are not at first sight out- 

 standing, but on examination of the two lan- 

 guages it is evident that there is a deep-seated 

 and obvious relationship, and the traditions of 

 the Calabar people would seem to show, that some 

 five hundred years ago they were the result of 

 an Ibo invasion of a region populated at that time 

 by a semi-Bantu stock (the Akwa), which even yet 

 extends very near to the Efik settlements of 

 Calabar. The Ibo language istelf is not without 

 suggestions of an ancient connection with the 

 great Central African speech which must have 

 been part parent of the Bantu. But it has closer 

 relationships at the present day with the tongues 

 of the Niger-Benue confluence and with the 

 Yoruba-Bini groups. 



In the volumes under review — valuable con- 

 tributions to African ethnology — Mr. Thomas 

 treats of the language in a few general re- 

 marks and also in a supplement to his Ibo 

 Dictionary published a year or so ago. This 

 supplement will be most useful to students 

 of African languages. Though I still disagree 

 with Mr. Thomas on some points in his ortho- 

 graphy, I am quite in agreement with him as to 

 the way in which he renders the voice tones which 

 are such an important factor in the pronunciation 

 of Ibo and most of the languages of the Niger 

 delta and of the adjoining districts of Dahome 

 and Togoland. His definition of these tones in 

 the last part of vol. vi. is an admirable treatment 

 of a very difficult subject, which in the hands of 

 previous writers has been rendered so obscurely 

 as to leave the mind of the philologist, not un- 

 acquainted with Ibo at first hand, in a state of 

 despairing puzzlement. \'olume or " Part " iv. 

 touches also on the question, but deals more, 

 especially with religion and magic, social and 

 political organisation, marriage, criminal law, 

 slavery, civil law, agriculture, and trade. It is 

 packed with interest for African students and for 

 ethnologists in general. Part v. comprises the 

 Addenda to the Ibo-English Dictionary, and 

 Part vi. is a collection of Ibo proverbs and stories 

 followed, as already stated, by an essay on the 

 voice tones of the language, an essay which 

 enables one to realise how much music enters 

 into human speech in these more primitive 

 peoples. Conversation in Ibo is always like the 

 recitative in Italian opera, which may be similarly 

 descended through thousands of years from that 

 deep-seated negroid element in the Mediterranean 

 peoples. 



The addenda to the Ibo-English dictionary are 

 deser\-ing of study by those who are making re- 



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